I spent the next week or two thinking over the offer in that letter while doing various bits of work in the interconnecting warren of lab rooms.

Many of the experiments were fairly standard, just using known information to test a multitude of hypotheses through experimentation.

Well, I guess I wasn't paying attention one afternoon just over a week before that silly school's orientation day. I accidentally added the wrong ingredient to an already simmering beaker filled with several fluids, and the resulting explosion rocked the building.

I ended up being slammed against the outer wall of the room, let me just say that hurt like hell as that wall is dressed fieldstone.

I took several minutes to closely examine myself, discovering that the only fairly serious injury was the broken thumb on my left hand. As best as I can remember, I threw my hand out in front of me when I realized what was happening, and that poor thumb hit the wall first.

I'm still not sure as to how I avoided breaking any other bones in that hand, or the wrist, honestly. Maybe it was pure dumb luck?

I spent the next little while taking care of my poor thumb, including splinting it and wrapping it in a snug bandage to keep it nice and straight.

I finally decided that I would at least check out this orientation day and perhaps make a decision then on going to the school. I used one of the computers in another of the basement lab rooms to send off an email to Lissa-Lee, saying I would be there for the orientation day.

I'll tell you, it isn't fun trying to type an email when you have a splinted broken thumb that keeps poking at the keyboard while you type.

I talked with Charles several days before the orientation day, and he made arrangements with a friend to take me down there.

Other than that, a lot of my time was used in doing other experiments in one or more of the lab rooms. I'm learning quite a bit, honestly.

The only exception to my working in the labs was the time I set aside each day to work on boosting my skills with magic. That proved to be easier than I had expected, as I found I could draw more and more magical energy to focus and use for casting a variety of spells.

Some of the spells that I was doing were from the grimoire I found at school about a year ago. I had lucked out when visiting a used bookstore in the town here a few weeks after I arrived. The store owner was getting rid of odds and ends that weren't selling, and in amongst the trash in the boxes there, I found two other grimoires, one of the two dating back to the late seventeenth century, 1685 to be more specific.

It seems the original creator of the grimoire had lived in Salem, Massachusetts at that time and had very narrowly escaped being put to death as a witch during the horrendous fiasco that took place there. She fled up to this area, living in a small shack by the shore for fifty years.

What was more interesting was that the grimoire had been in use by her descendants until about twenty years ago. There were inscriptions and notations from those olden days down through the generations to several scribblings that were included in September of 1995.

Then the various writings in the grimoire ended. I have to say I was rather curious as to what had happened to cause whoever had written the inscriptions to stop entering them. A visit to the library and just over three hours spent looking through old news gave me the answer.

The latest writings in it had been done by a mature woman and her teenage daughter. As I said, I was looking at old newspapers when I saw the headline "Mother and only daughter die in fiery crash". Reading it led me to find their names, which matched the ones in the grimoire.

That orientation day is happening in three days. I am waiting for Perry to get here so we can get on the road.

Oh, Perry is the friend that Charles called to help me get to the orientation day, and if necessary, return here afterward. Perry is a big black guy, about 6'2" or 6'3" tall; he looks rather muscular, so I'd say he's about 215 pounds. When I say black, think black as coal.

I had been waiting for about twenty minutes when Perry finally showed up driving a ratty old RV that looked like it was ready to fall apart. The darn thing looks like it had been built somewhere around 1960 or so. It definitely needs a new paint job, some body work, too.

I shrugged and lugged my two duffel bags over to the door leading into the RV, opened it, then up the steps, dropping them on one of the seats in the small kitchen area near the front of the vehicle. Perry waved at me, said hello, then invited me to take the passenger seat.

A bit over ten minutes later, we were rolling along the Trans Canada highway, heading south towards Barrie, then on to Windsor, Ontario. Perry and I had discussed various routes with Charles and had decided to go through the northern states as we made our way to Montana.

I vaguely remember a trip out west not long after we arrived in Canada, I think I was about seven years old at the time?

We reached Barrie about ninety minutes or so after we reached the Trans Canada highway. We took some time for a quick pit stop.

It took about an hour for us to go from Barrie to the northern edges of Toronto, but the big city driving slowed us down a bit. While we made our way through Toronto, we pulled off the highway for a bit, stopping at a Tim Horton's for coffees and refreshments, then we were off again.

We connected with the 401 highway, otherwise known as the McDonald Cartier Freeway, and the westward portion of the journey began.

We made another pit stop on the eastern side of London, then continued onward to the border crossings at Windsor.

The border crossing was a bit of a PITA, we had to wait in a long line-up of vehicles before we finally reached the crossing point. The guard took a few minutes to look over our info, noting that I had only received citizenship along with the rest of the family two years before.

There didn't seem to be anything odd about it all, I guess, as he handed our stuff back and waved us through the crossing.

We were now officially on US soil. This was a definite first for me, I'd been in Canada for seven years and we had never visited the US.

Perry looked at his watch and said it was almost 5 PM. We could stop somewhere for something to eat, then decide what to do.

We found a small family restaurant serving up a variety of home styled foods and both of us ended up stuffing ourselves. The place offered lots of food options, from poutine (loved by many Canadians) to their big favourite, a lovely roast of pork with apple in mouth, to fried cabbages that were a specialty of one of the restaurant owners, to a wide variety of freshly baked pies, including blackberry, pecan and rhubarb.

That led to Perry deciding we would find a motel on the edges of Detroit and relax for the night before resuming our journey.

We spent the next two days working our way west and north toward the town closest to the new school in Montana.

Just after 7 PM on the night before the orientation day, Perry pulled us into the lot of a motel and went in to get us a room.

There was a small diner about half a mile away from the motel, we stopped in there for another home style delicious meal. Like the one in Detroit, they offered a fair variety of options. Perry and I decided on more standard fare, what turned out to be a large serving of roast beef. It came with a huge baked potato and a small amount of green beans on the side. We finished the meal with plates of fresh apple pie.

Once we were back at the motel, we simply relaxed, watching a bit of TV for a while, then I worked on refining my magic skills.

We wound down around 11:30 that evening; both of us were asleep by the time midnight arrived.

Oops! We didn't have an alarm set to wake us up, and we both slept like logs. I finally roused from sleep around 10:30 AM. I was astonished to find that it was already that late, so I shook Perry on the shoulder gently to wake him up, then grabbed a quick shower.

Once I was done in there, Perry had his turn while I rummaged through the clothing I had brought, trying to decide what to wear.

As much as I may be used to looking like a male now, I still don't truly feel male inside. I'll always be a girl in my heart, I guess. That being the case, I suppose people might not be surprised to see that I picked out my best pair of slacks and a nice dress shirt and a tie.

Oh, gods, that has to be one of the worst things about being male. It took me hours and hours to learn how to tie a tie correctly. What makes it worse is that I didn't really figure it out until my older sister Johanna stepped in and showed me, outlining it step by nasty step.

After a fairly quick but nice breakfast of three eggs, ham and home fries at the diner, we were on our way to the school.

We pulled into the main lot at the school just after 12:15 PM, then followed several signs into the gymnasium, where all the orientation info had been set up at some point. I wandered around for about ten minutes or so before I heard my name being called.

While I had been in there, I had seen two girls, both pretty in their own way, being called by one of the teachers or staff.

Anyway, my name was eventually called, and I broke into a weak smile as the teacher led me out of the gym.

It turned out that she was the one that had contacted me about the school, yeah, Lissa-Lee Danifel. She was tall and slim for the most part, well, except for her rather large bosom; if I were still female, I might wish to have been so lucky as to be graced with a bust like hers!

She led me down this hallway, then along another one, turned another corner and continued toward the door at the end of the hall.

We were still about 20 feet or so away from the door when those two pretty girls I saw earlier exited that room, the door closing behind them.

Ms. Danifel nodded to the two girls as they passed us. Me, I just stared at them like a silly git as Ms. Danifel knocked on the door.

A few seconds later, an older woman's voice called out for us to enter, so we did.

It wasn't until I had fully entered the room that I realized my life had just changed quite seriously. I had moved past a rather large male of the naga species when I stopped dead in my tracks near the center of the room. What in the nine hells was Sabrina Portland doing here?

Oh, shit! I'm in deep, deep trouble now. If she's here, they likely know what I did a few months ago.

I turned around to try to leave, only to find myself quite thoroughly blocked by the rather large and suddenly intimidating naga.